Students and instructors gathered to voice chagrin regarding potential educational amendments at the University of Wyoming.
A meeting held Wednesday afternoon in the Classroom Building concerning the proposed changes to the USP curriculum became tense and heated as faculty members and interested parties claimed sides in the ongoing debate.
The new curriculum is proposing to eliminate the Diversity (D) and Global (G) credits from the USP requirements and replacing them with “Human Culture (HC).” The panel representing the new curriculum in the meeting consisted of: Maggi Murdock, Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs; Alyson Hagy, Interim Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Education and Budgets; and Steven Barrett, Associated Dean for Academic Programs.
The proposal has been presented to – and rejected by – ASUW members several times.
Dr. Tracey Patton, Director of the African American and Diaspora Studies, and Dr. Cici Aragón, Director of Chicano Studies, gave a presentation introducing the changes and the damages they would be doing to each department. Afterward, the panelists were open to questioning.
Throughout the open discussion, several outraged professors spoke up in defense of the current USP requirements. Among those who spoke included: Dr. Jeffrey Means, Associate Professor in Native American History; Dr. Catherine Connolly, Program Director of the Gender and Women Studies Department; and Dr. Aurora Chang, former Assistant Professor in Educational Studies.
Chang was the most vocal opposing professor, blatantly divulging she had resigned from her position due to the prospective changes in the interdisciplinary curriculum.
Wyoming Senator James Byrd—son of Elizabeth Byrd, the first female African-American senator in Wyoming—was also in attendance and voiced his support for the retention of the D and G requirements, saying he would “be in contact with the deans and the provosts.”
Panelists in favor of the changes attempted to explain what they were striving to change.
“We are not all experts in these areas, we have not devoted our intellectual careers to these fields,” repeated Murdock, addressing the subject of staff members outside the interdisciplinary programs teaching the Human Cultures classes.
Many believe if the new agenda is passed, it is going to make it substantially more difficult for UW students to compete with other students from universities where interdisciplinary studies are still centered and highly valued in their curriculum. Connolly said she regularly is called to be a reference from employers for former students.
“One of the questions often is to tell them about this student’s ability to work with a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, being a student coming from Wyoming,” Connolly said. “The employers want to be assured that students coming from Wyoming have that kind of exposure.”
